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Thoughts on the Reading 04/18

The Indexed State Transition Diagram (the one that combines low-fidelity diagrams with really low fidelity diagrams, seems like it could work really well if the environment was “hyper-linkable”. That way the really low fidelity screen can be shown and maybe with a click or a hover, the higher fidelity version could be displayed.

What is the difference between the diagrams that are discussed here and the diagrams that are a product of use cases in system design (I forget the name)

In presentation theory, we emphasize the need for you presentation to be a narrative or story. Whether you are presenting to pitch a product/service or an idea or whether your primary goal is to inform, your content and your delivery must flow and follow itself. My students often say that, for classroom presentations that are just supposed to regurgitate information the principle of story is difficult to achieve or even not applicable. The discussion of the Narrative Story board is a great tool that I could use to attempt to counter that argument.

I am truly happy that I read the animating the user experience. I am excited to try some of this out as this falls in to one of my areas of expertise. Little is written about slideware in HCI circles so it was reaffirming to see a textbook suggest things that I suggest which I obtained simply through experience. (i.e. The positioning of objects at the same coordinates in stack space as to not break the illusion that one is animating the same object.) There are so extensions that I can see from knowing the software that the book did not do into detail on that I can try. For example, the “lowest common denominator” slide can be done by placing the “LCD” objects in PowerPoint’s Slide Master. Each slide that is an instantiation of that master will have the “LCD” elements in the same location and, because they would be part of the slide background on the instantiated slide, they would not be clickable or editable elements so it would be impossible to move them, even by accident. Another is to utilize the ability to place things in a digitally specific position. Once that position is known, all one needs to do is define the position of any element that must occupy the same stack space can be assured of occupying that space by defined its digital coordinates to be the same as those of the original object.

The animation chapter also gives me some great content ideas for creating and instructing upon the design of “technical” presentations. Motion paths are such a great tool that no one seems to know about…well…other than this author. This is so much fun reading! Hyperlinks and Action buttons! This is a dream chapter!